Crossing the line

I love Toronto Star columnist Rosie DiManno. I love how bold and fearless, and frequently controversial, her opinions are. Often I love completely disagreeing with her.

In her column today, DiManno laments the broad application of sexual assault laws that brought down Saskatchewan Roughriders GM Eric Tillman.

Last summer, Mr. Tillman took several sleeping pills and pain killers for back pain and was sent home from work for acting oddly. He arrived home, where the 16 year-old babysitter was caring for his two young kids.

The girl bent over to feed one of the kid and when she straightened up, Mr. Tillman grabbed her hips and pulled her backwards until she was pressed against his body. “There was physical contact that was clearly of a sexual nature. This occurred without the consent of the complainant and she told the accused, ‘No’,” the Crown prosecutor told the court.

DiManno calls this “a crude, coarse gesture, hugely inappropriate, to say nothing of a betrayal of trust between an adult and a minor in his employ. But sexual assault?”

Last week, Mr. Tillman pleaded guilty to sexual assault and the next day was granted an absolute discharge, and will not have a criminal record. He has since quit his job with the Roughriders. 

In her column DiManno says: “But underpinning revulsion for his behaviour is – to my mind – a patronizing and infantilizing attitude toward the victim. The subtext, unchallenged, is that a teenager who apparently had her bottom rubbed or grinded by an adult male was traumatized or sexually assaulted. Clearly, her personal space was invaded in a sexual manner... But I don’t accept the premise, implicit in the law, that any of us – including a 16-year-old girl – are such delicate creatures that we require such paternalistic intervention by the state, police and Crown attorneys.”

I couldn’t disagree much more with her take on the law.

When I first started working in this area I remember a police brief crossing my desk. A man had been arguing with his teenage stepdaughter. He struck her and she fell to the floor. Then he climbed on top of her and dry-humped her until he was finished. I call that sexual assault, and I think that girl would as well.

So where do we draw the line between rubbing against the ass of one unwilling minor and a clothed simulated sex act against another?

We don’t and we shouldn’t have to. If it’s uninvited sexual touching of any type, it’s sexual assault.

That’s the bold, simple line.

Most victims of sexual assault know their attackers. And attacks can escalate, so what begins as an inappropriate graze can over time turn into a much more serious assault.

Sexual assault is already an incredibly under-reported crime. Putting women in a position where they have to wait for their touchy acquaintance to breach some arbitrary limit before calling in police, won’t exactly help.

DiManno says “If I were the teen’s father, I would have socked Tillman in the jaw. Had the victim been older and more self-assured, she might have done so herself.”

Does anyone else find it hilarious that while calling the sexual assault law patronizing, DiManno suggests the teen’s father should have defended his daughter’s honour and implies the victim was too young and insecure to stand up for herself?      

Yes, maybe now the teen will be confident enough to head-butt any man who comes near her. But I’d rather live in a world where my daughter doesn’t have to learn that particular skill.

And I’d still want her to call the cops after she was done tearing him a new one, because the next girl he comes across may not be as strong.

DiManno says we have “embraced the clumsy mantra of zero tolerance for female victimhood”. But overall, we live in a “zero tolerance” society.

Where you used to be able to hit someone if they hit you first, today you can get charged with assault for spitting on someone. The amount of alcohol you can consume before getting behind the wheel is steadily decreasing.

And if you grab a girl’s ass and grind it against your crotch - you can be charged with sexual assault. Because that simple line has been crossed.

Comments

[Cobourg girl]

I have to side with DiManno on this one, although it is a complicated societal problem, and one that we'll probably have as long as men and women continue to live in the same world.

There is a huge difference between this case and the one cited by Jennifer. There needs to be differentiation between forcible, humiliating physical attack and a fumbling, fleeting over-medicated gesture like this current case.

When I was about 14, my parent's company Christmas party was at our house, and at one point, a long time employee who was a bit over-refreshed opened my bedroom door, threw himself on the bed where I was reading and make a lunge for my chest.

I pushed him away and told him to get out of my room. He apologised while he was backing out the door, and that was it. I knew if I told my dad he'd be fired, and I liked the guy, and knew he had a wife and 4 kids. This minor little incident wasn't worth all that. Not for him or me.

We need to get real. I don't condone sexual or physical abuse of any human by another human, and I would like to see real penalties for those who do. But please, not for this. The non legal penalty this man is paying far exceeds his so called crime.

The police didn't need to be involved in this in the first place, and it sounds like the girl and her family regretted that they had made the call.

Let's keep our perspective and not try to kill a fly with a flame shooter.